OPPENHEIMER in JAPAN

Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster film “Oppenheimer” opened recently in Hiroshima, Japan, the site of one of the two atomic bombs that was dropped on the Japanese people on August 6 1945, killing over 80,000 souls instantly. Tens of thousands would die from radiation poisoning sometime after. An American B-29 bomber dropped the first bomb on Hiroshima. Three days later a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki killing another 50,000 men, women and children instantly with tens of thousands dying in the days and years to come. 

Now, decades after the bombs were dropped, radiation levels are nearly indistinguishable from natural background radiation levels anywhere on earth. 

A reporter from the local Hiroshima news media was on hand for the picture’s opening night. Movie goers were briefly interviewed as they left the theater.

“I was totally shocked. They were talking about Hiroshima again and again in the meeting rooms. But there was never any mention about the people of Hiroshima,” observed one attendee.

“Oppenheimer was portrayed as a great man. But he could not hide the regret and guilt in his heart,” remarked another,

“The sense of excitement of the people celebrating the experiment and the dropping of the atomic bomb was everywhere,” stated a young woman as she left the movie. “I felt incredibly disgusted.”